Fallen Angels (11 page)

Chloe put a hand on his. “Yes, but don’t
worry about me. They tell me this sort of thing is normal when a
woman is in the family way.”

Distressing thought. Maybe I’d stick to
poodles and never get married and have children.

“I’m so sorry, honey.” Harvey meant it.
He and Chloe were the perfect couple. I mean that sincerely. They
absolutely belonged together, which made me happy since . . . well,
since they
were
together, if
you know what I mean.

Chloe tried to put on a brighter expression.
“Mercy’s getting us a toy poodle for Christmas, Harvey. What color
do you want?”

Harvey, continuing to massage Chloe’s
shoulders, looked from me to Buttercup and back again, his eyebrows
lifting, whether in delight or surprise I couldn’t tell. “That’s
nice of you, Mercy, but . . . They come in different colors?”

“Tell him, Mercy.” Chloe allowed her head to
fall forward as she enjoyed Harvey’s massaging fingers.

“Black, reddish-brown, white, and golden like
Buttercup.”

“I like Buttercup a lot,” said the
ever-diplomatic Harvey, “but I’d kind of like a black one.
Maybe.”

“Black is a very sophisticated color,” I told
him. Chloe had enlightened me on that important reality of life;
otherwise I wouldn’t have known. “In fact, the very first toy
poodle I ever met was black, and she was the reason I decided to
get Buttercup.”

“Black it is, then,” said Chloe.

By that time, Buttercup and I had finished
breakfast, so I led her out to the backyard where she did her duty
as a dog, and then I left the house for the Angelica Gospel Hall.
I’d called ahead for a taxicab, and when I told him my destination,
he said he didn’t need me to tell him the address.

“Everybody’s going there these days,” he
said, trying, I’m sure, to make friendly conversation on our
journey.

“That’s what I hear. I figured I’d go and see
what all the fuss is about.”

I could tell he was grinning even though I
sat in the back seat. “Hellfire and brimstone, I imagine.”

“Maybe. Actually, I’ve read that Mrs.
Emmanuel preaches more about joy and happiness than hellfire and
brimstone.”

“Yeah? Well, that’d be a new approach,
huh?”

“Indeed it would.”

In actual fact, once I got there and Mrs.
Emmanuel began preaching, I discovered both the cabbie and I had
been right to one degree or another. I’d never seen a minister
preach in so . . . boisterous a manner. Boisterousness isn’t a word
one associates with Episcopalians, and that’s what my family is.
Was. Oh, bother. You know what I mean.

I’d never been in a church where the members
of the congregation felt free to vent their feelings with loud
calls of “Amen!” and the waving of hands in the air, either. Sister
Emmanuel seemed to eat up the enthusiasm, and I could almost
understand the attraction of a happy and loving faith in one’s god,
although my stubborn Bostonian breeding kept me glued to my pew,
and I only opened my mouth in order to sing the hymns, most of
which were new to me. The entire experience was most enlightening
as far as understanding the appeal to so many of the Angelica
Gospel Hall and its leader, but I didn’t know how attending this
service was going to help me solve the murder of Mrs. Chalmers.
There I was, stuck in a pew, and there wasn’t an appealing suspect
in sight. Even if there had been, I was in no position to
interrogate him or her.

The worst part was yet to come. After the
final amen sounded from His people again, as the old hymn puts it,
people stood up, turned in their pews, and began cheerfully
embracing and blessing one another. Never, in my entire life, had I
imagined that such activities could take place in a church.

The lady beside me said, “God bless you,
sister!”

I gulped and said, “God bless you . . .
sister.”

Then she grabbed me in a big, fat hug. After
a second or two spent being appalled and stiff, I unbent and hugged
her back. What the heck. I was there, and this was clearly the
conduct expected of anyone who was there. My mother was going to
freeze into a block of ice when she heard about this latest
instance of what she would term unruly behavior on my part.

The hug knocked my pew mate’s hat askew, so
when she ultimately released me, she straightened it, smiled
brightly upon me, and said, “I haven’t seen you here before,
sister. Did you hear the call?”

The call? “Um . . .”

She evidently didn’t need anyone to respond
to her questions in order for her to carry on a conversation,
because she went on as if she hadn’t expected a reply from me. “So
many people are being called by the Lord to come to Jesus through
Sister Emmanuel.” Enthusiasm. The woman definitely had enthusiasm
for this new breed of evangelism.

I tried again. “Um . . .”

“Isn’t Sister Emmanuel wonderful? Why, I can
hear Jesus speaking right through her! I’m sure you could,
too.”

“Um . . .”

“The Angelica Gospel Hall and Sister Emmanuel
have changed my life since I began coming here.” She clasped her
hands in a frenzy of worshipful ecstasy.

It had changed Mrs. Chalmers’ life a whole
lot, too, thought I, rather more cynically than was normal for me.
However, I was truly unaccustomed to this sort of freewheeling
behavior in church. I knew even then that my distaste was primarily
due to my stuffy upbringing, but some personality traits are
difficult to change when they’ve been drummed into one from the
cradle. It was one thing for me to move to Los Angeles and secure
employment. It was an entirely other thing for me to jump up and
down and holler in church, for heaven’s sake. Or embrace perfect
strangers.

“Please,” said the woman, still floating on a
cloud of glory, “won’t you tell me your name and why you chose to
come to the light today?”

“Um . . . why, yes. My name is Miss Mercedes
Allcutt. Everyone calls me Mercy. I actually came to this church
today because a . . . an acquaintance of mine had started attending
here not long ago.” That was true. In a way. I’d met Mrs. Chalmers
a time or two before she was murdered.

“Oh?” The woman seemed even more enthusiastic
at hearing I had a congregation member as a friend than she was
before. I wouldn’t have believed such a thing to be possible unless
I’d seen it for myself. “Who is that?”

I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Persephone
Chalmers.”

“One of my dearest friends!” squealed the
woman. Then she lowered her voice. “My name is Elizabeth Pinkney.
Mrs. Gaylord Pinkney. He—Mr. Pinkney—doesn’t attend church with
me.” She appeared downcast for a moment, as if regretting that
Gaylord wouldn’t end up in heaven with her when God blew his golden
trump. Or was it one of his archangels who was going to blow the
trump? Well, I don’t suppose it matters.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, sensing
that perhaps I could actually learn something from this trip to
church after all. “I don’t believe Mr. Chalmers attended with Mrs.
Chalmers, either.”

“I don’t believe he did, but I don’t think he
dislikes the place as poor Mr. Pinkney does.”

Aha! I was getting somewhere! Maybe. “I’m
sorry your husband doesn’t . . . appreciate Sister Emmanuel’s
message.” There. That had been tactful, and it was even the
truth.

“It’s a shame. But I’m sure he’ll come ’round
in the end. I pray for him every day.”

“How very kind of you.” I hoped she did
her praying in private and didn’t do so in front of the poor man.
If the latter situation prevailed, it wouldn’t have surprised me to
discover an article about the decease of Mrs. Gaylord Pinkney in
the
Times
one day.

“It’s all I can do, pray for him. I think
he’s weakening.”

I said, “Let us all hope so,” although I kind
of felt sorry for Mr. Pinkney.

Fortunately, Mrs. Pinkney dropped the subject
of the prayed-over Mr. Pinkney and looked around at the milling
throng. People had begun to exit the sanctuary. “I don’t see Mrs.
Chalmers in church today. We usually sit together, so that rather
surprises me. Did you say you’d planned on meeting her here?”

Oh, dear. This poor woman hadn’t heard
about Mrs. Chalmers’ death yet. I’d read the obituary in the
Los Angeles Times
this morning, but
since she’d died on Thursday and I hadn’t discovered her body until
the afternoon, and the police were involved and all, I guess the
news didn’t hit the Saturday paper. Naturally, the obituary hadn’t
mentioned anything about murder. It had only mentioned a “sudden
and untimely” death.

So I decided that, if I couldn’t honestly get
as excited about this Angelica Gospel Hall thing as Mrs. Chalmers
and Mrs. Pinkney, at least I could darned well act. Therefore, I
put on a tragic expression, took hold of Mrs. Pinkney’s arm and
whispered in the most morose tone I could summon, “Oh, my dear, you
haven’t heard?”

Blinking and losing some of her gusto, Mrs.
Pinkney said, “Heard what?”

I glanced around as if to make sure we
weren’t being overheard and then whispered even more morosely,
“Mrs. Chalmers has passed on.”

“P-passed on?” Mrs. Pinkney swallowed.
“Whatever do you mean? I spoke with her on the telephone last
Thursday morning.”

“The very day of her death,” said I in the
voice of doom.

Mrs. Pinkney’s hand flew to her bosom, where
it remained. Her eyes widened, and I felt awful when I saw tears
building in them. “How . . . how did she die?”

After glancing around one last time, I
leaned toward Mrs. Pinkney and muttered, “She was
murdered
.”

Mrs. Pinkney let out a scream that might have
torn the ceiling off the Angelica Gospel Hall. Then she
fainted.

Chapter Seven

“Oh, dear, I’m so very sorry!” I whispered,
appalled as I stared down at the gentleman who’d rushed over at
Mrs. Pinkney’s blood-curdling scream.

“Whatever in the world happened to her?”

A deacon, or whatever the folks at the
Angelica Gospel Hall called those fellows, was chafing Mrs.
Pinkney’s hands and looking worried. It was he who’d asked the
question, and he looked none too pleased. As for me, I was wishing
frantically that I’d followed my mother’s strict instruction always
to carry a vial of smelling salts with me. Since I’d never fainted
in my life and didn’t intend to begin doing so any time soon, I
hadn’t thought I’d needed to follow her orders on my way to church
that morning. Shows how much I knew.

“I . . . um, I told her that Mrs.
Chalmers—she attended services here, and I guess Mrs. Pinkney knew
her—had passed away. Then she screamed and fainted.” I left out the
part about Mrs. Chalmers having been murdered, which was what had
actually brought on the shriek and the faint. I hoped God would
forgive me for committing the sin of omission in church.

The deacon’s neck nearly snapped when his
head jerked up and he stared at me. “You know Mrs. Chalmers?” He
was a gaunt-looking fellow, and my news didn’t do a thing for his
looks. I felt guilty. “You mean Mrs. Persephone Chalmers?”

There it was again. The Mrs. Persephone
Chalmers thing. I’d wondered ever since I’d met her why Mrs.
Chalmers didn’t call herself Mrs. Franchot Chalmers, Franchot being
her husband’s first name. Not that I’d want to be called Mrs.
Franchot anything at all, but I didn’t think Franchot was any worse
than Persephone. Or Clovilla or Mercedes, for that matter.

However, that is neither here nor there. I
knew to whom he referred, and I nodded unhappily. “Yes. Mrs.
Chalmers was . . .” Should I use the M word? Well, why not? I
doubted this fellow would scream, and if he fainted, he was already
pretty close to the floor. “She was murdered, actually. Last
Thursday. In the late morning or the early afternoon.” I didn’t
know the time of her death yet, but I’d deduced it from Ernie’s
statement.

“Murdered! Surely, you’re mistaken.”
The word had so shaken him, he allowed poor Mrs. Pinkney’s head to
drop onto the tiled floor once more. I winced in sympathy at the
dull
thunk
, but answered,
annoyed by this fellow’s suggestion that I was a liar.

“I am not mistaken,” I said, bringing a
little Boston ice to bear in my voice. “I found her body myself. It
was a most unpleasant discovery, I can tell you.”

“Oh, my dear Lord.”

“Indeed.”

“Whatever is the matter, Brother Everett?”
said a new voice.

It was a voice I recognized. Turning in
astonishment, I beheld, standing before me in her white robe and
looking every bit as dramatic up close as she had upon the chancel
behind her pulpit, Sister Adelaide Burkhard Emmanuel. I admit to
being a trifle tongue-tied and star-stricken for a moment. I, who
had been introduced to John Barrymore, Mary Pickford, and Douglas
Fairbanks, and who would be dining with Renee Adoree and John
Gilbert that very evening, for Pete’s sake!

“Sister Emmanuel,” said Brother Everett—I
mean Mr. Everett, “this lady just told me that Sister Chalmers has
been . . . murdered.” He hadn’t wanted to say the word any more
than I’d wanted to.

“Sweet Lord, have mercy!” cried Sister
Emmanuel, lifting her arms toward the church’s ceiling and,
therefore (I think), toward heaven. I also think she didn’t mean
the Lord to have me personally, which is why I didn’t capitalize
“mercy.” “Let us pray, Brother Everett. Let us pray. Please join
with us, young woman.”

And darned if she didn’t take my hand and
pretty much force me to my knees. Personally, my attention was
divided. I mean, Mrs. Pinkney might well be as dead as Mrs.
Chalmers, as she still lay on the floor in a faint, but having my
hands held by Sister Emmanuel and Brother Everett as Sister
Emmanuel sent up an eloquent and very loud prayer also captured my
interest.